“I’ll have to send someone’s ass home,” the Halifax Rainmen owner and general manager said early Tuesday.

Later in the day, he did just that.

Centre Antoine Tisby was released and forward Akeem Wright was placed on inactive reserve due to “unprofessional behaviour,” meaning he’s done for the season.

“We don’t have to carry 12 guys, we can carry 10,” Levingston said.

Clearly, he was still smarting from an important loss in Moncton on Monday night. That result dropped the Rainmen to 17-17, only a half-game ahead of Moncton, 19-20, in the race for the last NBL playoff berth.

The Rainmen’s play during that 99-84 defeat was especially irritating to the team brass. It represented a continuing concern about players not being at their best in significant games, especially games crucial to the team’s goal of making the playoffs.

“They (Moncton) were playing for something and we weren’t, and we showed it,” Rainmen coach Rob Spon told The Chronicle Herald after the road loss.

It’s not only the coach who’s frustrated. Often this season, even players have talked in the media after games about the team lacking intensity, needing to play with more heart and being outworked.

But no one is more upset than Levingston.

“When the effort is not there, it’s unacceptable,” he said. “It’s disrespectful to the fans and the city.

“I can’t watch talented guys ruin what we’re trying to build.”

Levingston conceded that many of his players do contribute on and off the court as expected. But in other cases, an old problem with leading an undisciplined lifestyle away from the game had come back this season.

“You got players who don’t know how to separate nightlife from their job,” he said.

Why should maintaining off-court discipline, for players who often play all over the continent, be such a recurring problem in Halifax?

“Basketball at this level, they (players) don’t get attention in the U.S. the way they do here,” Levingston said. “You want the guys to have some fun and enjoy the city. (But) they need to learn how to be professionals.”

This may help to explain why so many talented ex-Rainmen, traded away this season, have performed better with their new teams.

“Every guy we’ve gotten rid of has gone on to be player of the week somewhere else,” Levingston said. “But when they were here, they were awful.”

Last summer, Levingston cited poor attitudes as a problem with last season’s Rainmen. He basically cleaned house in the off-season and brought in new players he hoped would promote a new and improved attitude.

Apparently, it didn’t work.

Could this latest drastic action actually spark the Rainmen toward a run to the playoffs?

On a team this unpredictable, that’s anybody’s guess.

Chris Cochrane is a sports columnist with The Chronicle Herald and the author of Inside the Game.